Intel's new CEO explores big shift in chip manufacturing business

https://www.reuters.com/business/retail-consumer/intels-new-ceo-explores-big-shift-chip-manufacturing-business-2025-07-02/

by ksec • 1 year ago

15 6 1 year ago

reuters.com

ksec• 1 year ago

Since taking in March, CEO Lip-Bu Tan has moved fast to cut costs and find a new path to revive the ailing U.S. chipmaker. By June, he started voicing that a manufacturing process that prior CEO Pat Gelsinger bet heavily on, known as 18A, was losing its appeal to new customers, said the sources, who spoke on condition of anonymity.

Losing Appeal? Really?

Tan has tasked the company with teeing up options for discussion with Intel's board when it meets as early as this month, including whether to stop marketing 18A to new clients, one of the two sources said.

So it's the board again?

j_walter2• 1 year ago

Probably losing appeal because, as another article pointed out, the 18A process has been found to be roughly equivalent to TSMC's N3 process, which was in HVM in 2023...not exactly what was promised the last few years (which was better performance than TSMC N2).

What is interesting is TSMC claimed this over a year ago and Intel denied it.

DebtDeflation• 1 year ago

Watch them cancel 18A and claim it's because 14A is coming along faster and better than planned. Like they did with 20A.

yndoendo• 1 year ago

I haven't followed Intel for some time, are their high-end chips still being made by TSMC or have they moved back to Intel foundry?

j_walter2• 1 year ago

A majority of the chiplets are made by TSMC, but the main cores had still made by Intel. This has changed somewhat the last few years, but TSMC is still making a lot of chips for Intel. Supposedly the 18A node will be used for the latest gen CPU but it is still likely to use some TSMC chiplets.

Example: https://www.techpowerup.com/298027/tsmc-not-intel-makes-the-...

pointyfence• 1 year ago

Intel has been backpedaling away from the idea of 18A as an node for external customers for a few quarters now as the external demand for 18A is very low. CFO has said external customer revenue isn't expected to have a material financial impact even by 2027. Intel has been pushing the narrative that 18A is primarily an internal node from the start.

I think what's more disconcerting if you are an Intel fan is that Intel likely now recognizes that 18A will not have the impact that they originally thought when the ex-CEO "bet the whole company on 18A." Rather than dump more resources into it, they are instead trying to get ahead of the problem by moving resources to 14A which in theory has broader appeal.

Intel's new CEO explores big shift in chip manufacturing business

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